Apple may assist in verifying the authenticity of your iPhone photos against deepfake claims.

Apple appears to be working on a new iOS feature that can confirm when a photo was taken with an iPhone camera. Reports indicate that the iOS 27 beta 5 includes references to an “Apple Reference Image” system, which aims to embed provenance metadata directly into photos at the moment of capture. This would allow users to verify the origin of their images and distinguish them from AI-generated content.

While the Apple Reference Image feature isn’t active yet, a privacy note in the iOS beta mentions that it will be disabled by default. If it becomes available, users can enable it through Settings > Camera > Reference Image > Reference Mode. Only photos taken with a new “Reference” option in the iPhone Camera app will carry the necessary provenance information for verification.

Details about the authentication process reveal that it won’t happen automatically. Instead, users will need to tap a Reference badge on the photo, which will send the raw image along with its embedded provenance data—such as sensor signatures, capture time, and unique hardware identifiers—to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers for verification. The authenticated version will then be returned with a unique ID.

During this process, Apple does not access the raw photo itself, but it may receive sensor data to prevent images from compromised sensors from being authenticated or to revoke previous authentications for those images. Authenticated photos can be viewed on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

The Apple Reference Image system is similar to the C2PA Content Credentials provenance standard, which tracks how and where an image was created and whether generative AI tools were involved. Camera manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, Sony, FujiFilm, and Leica have been gradually integrating this standard into their devices, and Google’s Pixel 10 cameras also support it. However, Apple has yet to adopt it.

C2PA’s reliability has been questioned, which may lead Apple to believe that its own system will provide a more effective solution. The introduction of a provenance system for iPhone photography also indicates Apple’s commitment to supporting the labeling of human-made works across online platforms—an initiative that Instagram’s head believes could be more feasible than identifying and labeling AI-generated content.